Thinkpads Forum

My daughter's 600X (2645 JJ4) has a broken out headphone jack. The sound on the laptop no longer works. I assume this is because the system thinks that the headphones are still plugged in. I took it apart and removed all of the broken pieces of plastic and metal. Is there any way I can splice into the sound? I really don't want to have to replace the system board. I looked to see it there was an obvious connection on the system board to solder to but there is just a couple holes where the pieces used to connect. Anyone have any experience with this? I have one end of a headphone extension that has the 3 wires comming out. If I can find the leads before they go into the headphone jack area, I could solder them in and just let the female jack hang out of the hole. Help anyone??

Headphone jacks generally have a switch(es) inside them which allows the built-in speakers to work. If the jack is broken (or removed) then the switch contacts do not exist anymore, therefore no sound from the laptop's speakers. It might be possible to replace the jack as long as the circuit board is intact. I have a motherboard that I can work on and I will see if I can identify the manufacturer of the jack and find a source.

You could, as you suggest, tap into the proper holes and solder on a permanent, external, headphone jack.

If you can stand by for a couple of hours/days I may have an answer about a replacement jack.

Like I said though all of the pieces are missing, so I don't know if it's something that can be replaced or not. But' if it's possibele I would like to give it a shot. I don't have any money to put into it. So a free way to fix it would be the prefered way to go. I have a 600E that I have to use parts from, but when I took it apart, the 2 jack are altogether different. So no help there. I was hoping that I could take the microphone jack apart and move it over since I never use that jack. But, it looks like the only way you could do that is to break it. Let me know what you find out.

I believe that I found out the part number of the jack. It appears to be a Foxconn JA6333L-1R0. You can view a datasheet at:

http://www.foxconn.com/search/Show_Prod ... 33L-1R0-TR

and click on the SPEC button. You will need Adobe Acrobat and the latest Chinese language update to view the file (don't worry it's not in Chinese). The bad news is that I have not been able to find a supplier that sells in single-unit quantities. My usual sources that I buy from do not carry Foxconn products. Nor can I find a suitable cross-reference (replacement) part from another manufacturer.

Your suggestion of "borrowing" the microphone jack is a good one, however it appears to be of a slightly different type. The pinout is not electrically the same. The LINE IN jack does appear to be identical to the headphone jack so if don't mind losing that capability then it might be possible to use it.

You will have to unsolder the six pins that are holding it down to the motherboard. This will require removal of the motherboard. You will need (at minimum) a fine-tip, low wattage soldering iron, about 25W will do, some solder wick or solder sucker (to remove the existing solder), and some thin gauge solder. If you don't want to or can't unsolder the LINE IN jack and simply want to solder on the three wire stereo headphone jack, then I will see if I can identify which holes you will need to use.

It would probably be better/easier if I just attached the jack I have. I don't have access to any of the stuff you specify, and really don't have that much confidence in my soldering skills anyway. I only saw 2 holes there. But if you can figure out where the 3 are that I need to splice into it would be a great help.

Thanks for your help.

I have posted another page at my domain which has some details about the right side panel of the 600X, specifically dealing with a broken or missing headphone jack. You can see it at:

http://www.rkawakami.net/ibm_600x/side_panel/

I believe that I found the correct part but I have not been able to find anyone selling it in single-unit quantities or at a reasonable ($5-$10) minimum order. If anyone knows of such a place who deals with Foxconn parts (JA6333L-1R0-TR in particular), please contact me either via PM or at the e-mail listed on my web page.

Thanks for the help. Do you know by chance if it makes a difference if the ring and pin are reversed? Or do you know which wire is the ring and which one is the pin. One is red and the other is white. I assume they are standard color, but, I've never done anything like this before. I plan on tackling this tomorrow. I have to replace the backlight in my T22 first, then I promised my daughter I would at least try. It wouldn't be such a problem except there's no sound at all the way it is.I wish they would have made these jacks a little daughter board that you could just replace rather then having to replace the whole system board. Those jacks are REALLY easy to break. Especially if you use them a lot, you know?

Thanks again for the insight and knowledge.

Ring and tip reversed will swap the left and right channels. I'm not sure which wire goes to what part of the jack. I know that it's mostly a standard that the red wire is the right channel and the white wire the left channel. (Think of jacks on the back of stereos, TVs and VCRs; audio channels are usually colored red and white, yellow for video). That being the case, the right channel of the earphones I'm currently wearing is the TIP and the left channel the RING. How does this equate to pins 2 and 3 of the headphone jack on the 600X motherboard?

I would guess that the red wire should go to pin 2 and the white wire to pin 3. I have a 50-50 chance of getting this right .

If you really want to verify this before installing the wires then you would need an ohmmeter, usually called a DVM for digital volt meter. You can pick up a cheap one from Radio Shack. Just be sure that it has an ohmmeter (resistance) setting. You can then check the way the wires are connected by the two test leads and measuring 0 ohms for a connection.

I am also assuming that the third wire is actually a shield or bare wire. That one should go to pin 1 of the headphone jack.

Not sure about the longevity of the jacks on the laptop; I never use them!

Update: I have removed the headphone and microphone jacks from my "test case" motherboard and verified that they are identical. You should be able to swap any one of these three jacks with each other. However, I believe that I made a mistake in the part number that I previously posted. It now looks like the Foxconn part number is JA6333L-100. This is probably a moot point since I still have not been able to locate anyone who stocks Foxconn components and is willing to sell just a couple of them to me.

It is fairly difficult to remove a working (complete) jack with the intention of keeping it intact and usable again. For a broken connector there is not that concern, which should make it a little easier to unsolder a bad jack from the motherboard. Care must be exercised that you do not excessively heat the motherboard or you stand the chance of damaging the copper trace. You will need a fine-tipped soldering iron, a way of removing the existing solder (a "sucker" or wick) and a good pair of eyes. I would only recommend this procedure for somebody who has had some experience working around densely packed, surface mount components. In fact during removal of one of the jacks I lifted off one of the round copper pads from the motherboard. As the motherboard I was using is not from a working laptop, I was not too worried about it. The damage I did to that board could be fixed with a little extra solder but you may not be so lucky.

Once I had the jacks removed I could test them with my ohmmeter to see if they had the same connections and they did. Electrically they appear to be the same, both when headphones are plugged in and when they are removed. I then double-checked my original guess at the part number and found that the jacks didn't match. So with some more searching around the Foxconn site, downloading Adobe Acrobat datasheets, I think I found the right one. The only difference is in the "tail length" specification, basically how long the leads are. This datasheet:

http://www.foxconn.com/search/Show_Prod ... 33L-101-TR

does not list the tail length that I measured on the jacks from my motherboard (2.00mm) but instead has a length of 2.40mm. That is the difference between the "100" (2.00mm) and "101" (2.40mm) part numbers. I suppose that the "101" part could be used and if a problem, the leads could be cut down if they extend too far off of the motherboard. A web search of "JA6333L-100" does show this part at several distributors but they do not sell to the "average Joe".